29. The Fellsman
Date: 9th/10th May 2009
Distance: 62 miles as near as damn it
Ascent/descent: 11,250 ft
Route map
Time: 18 hours 10 minutes!
What a truly awesome, epic adventure! Easily the best route I have ever run and quite possibly one of the best things I've ever done in my life too. Absolutely fricking brilliant.
My build up to it though was a farce, culminating in knacking my ankle early into the 3 peaks fell race, itself a crucial bit of mileage lost in my build up to the fellsman, with too much rest time then semi imposed on me to get the ankle back into use. I can now run on it but it sure doesn't give me much confidence on rough ground.... and as I was soon to find out the fellsman has rough ground up to the gun 'oles.
The whole event is stunningly organised, including a rigorous kit check that failed me first time round (thanks donkarlo for the 'loan' of your survival bag) and something like 24 or 25 manned checkpoints all the way round, including 9 top notch food stops with brilliantly varied menus.
The start was nice and relaxed really, with all 382 of the starters more than realising the distance ahead, and the climb up Ingleborough out of Ingleton was nice and chilled as a result. I then pushed it a bit descending to Hill Inn and on the climb up Whernside, before fairly speedily scooting south along the ridge line to our drop off point into Kingsdale. At this point though the realisation of what might be ahead dawned on me as the descent was all over open tussocky fellside and I swiftly felt my ankle begin to twinge at the prospect.
All the same I got down in one piece and up Gragareth before enjoying the fairly smooth ridge run along to Great Coum. The descent though down into Dent was again over ankle killing terrain but, with a lot of care, again I survived, hitting Dent a bit before the 4 hour mark.
Out of Dent, heading towards Blea Moor, I teamed up with Mandy from Macclesfield Harriers who was great company and also knew what she was doing on the navigational front. (A good runner too, having succeeded on a BG at her first attempt). We then proceeded to get soaked and chilled to the bone together crossing Blea Moor in horizontal driven rain and hail such that, dropping downthrough the forested area before Dent Head Viaduct, I had to bid Mandy farewell, while I urgently put on extra layers and my (never ever used before) but desperately needed waterproof trousers.
The food station at Stonehouse with its delicious pasta was just in the nick of time but the conversation from alot of the competitors there was all about giving or trying not to give up, the weather had been so awful. (139 of the field were to drop out at one place or another throughout the day and night).The rain did stop though although it remained very windy and, from Stonehouse, I trudged up Great Knoutberry on my tod and then descended very badly, suffering from stomach cramps at this point! By now ML and Mrs C had over taken me and Stef F was running parallel to me with a chap called Steve, who was running his 12th consecutive Fellsman! From this point on navigation I knew would become more critical and, in any event, I was determined to try and stop Stef from overtaking me if I could. Inevitably Stef and Steve did overtake me of course dropping down to Redshaw but I sneakily started off from that checkpoint a couple of minutes before them to retake the lead!
We then gradually sort of run as a threesome, with me ingratiating myself for some much needed company and moral support. Unfortunately from this point on the ground became progressively more nightmarish and with one hand I tried to keep pace with Stef and Steve and with the other desperately watch each and every placing of my right foot on the ground to avoid damaging my ankle. Stef brilliantly set a fantastic pace which made things a bit dodgy for me, having to risk my ankle more just to keep up. Fortunately I just about got away with this tactic from there on in to the finish, although I did feel like a bit of a brake on our progress from time to time.
The crossing of Fleet Moss and Middle Tongue I mostly enjoyed in that it was totally unrunnable bog up to the eyeballs and therefore not a threat to my ankle although, as we neared Cray, things (annoyingly) became more runnable but at the same time bastard ground for my ankle and I slowed things down a bit I'm sure.
At Cray we had to wait 44 minutes to be made into a compulsory group of 4 and Hannah (soon to be doing the Moont Blanc 100 mile ultra!) joined us. In preparation for Mont Blanc she was carrying walking sticks and kindly lent them to me, which although I wouldn't normally admit to such a thing, helped protect my ankle enormously and helped me speed up somewhat. It was dark now, very muddy for the most part as we went up Buckden Pike and across down, round and up Great Whernside with low cloud coming into the equation up there. Then it was a very long and drawn out drop down towards Yarnbury but with just such a brilliant group of fellsman runners as company (Hannah from London, Steve from Essex, Stef from Southampton and me from Buckinghamshire but now a token northener!).
At Yarnbury we knew we were home and dry and we all enjoyed running all the way to the finish, reaching the school at Threshfied at 3:54 am, some 18 hours and 54 minutes after starting out. Steve, Stef and me though got the 44 minutes of hanging around waiting to be grouped at Cray added back in for a net 18:10.
I am so back next year to aim for 16 hours!
Some random pictures:
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